But if they need to, they are eternally grateful she is manning the Newborn Intensive Care Unit, caring for the sickest babies in Victoria.

She watched hundreds of hours of open heart surgery on newborns as part of her PhD into congenital heart disease, and is researching the developmental effects on children who have surgery in their first months of life.

But none of this helped when Dr Gunn and husband Matthew Charlton became parents to daughter Emily, who was born with a congenital heart defect.

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